More from the Salt Lake Debate, then, Joseph Smith's Sermon in the Grove

Well, greetings and welcome to the Dividing Line. It's a Tuesday. We actually got the program in. It wasn't looking good.

Inspection took place. Got another one tomorrow, I hope. Man, that would be great because those are the two governmental ones.

And then I would only leave one more after that. I suppose I can be somewhat thankful. Probably in California, it would be four more after that.

But anyways, yes, I don't know why anybody bothers with home improvement.

Not if you do it legally. Do it all off the books. You can actually get it done at a decent price and a decent amount of time.

But do it the other way. And yeah, I started this process, I think it was over a year ago. So, yeah.

Anyway, hopefully once it's all done, it'll be worthwhile and that first big monsoon storm that hits and takes everything out.

And we're the only house sitting there with lights and air conditioning. And everybody comes, starts throwing rocks at the windows.

That's how that'll happen. Anyway, I have thought about that. That, you know, you should go ahead and turn all the lights off.

If everybody else is, they'll still hear the air conditioning running though. So that's the problem. If it's during the summer in Phoenix.

Anyway, and it's been warm the past number of days. I'm not sure if we were setting any records.

I wasn't really paying attention. A couple of them, yeah. It's supposed to cool back down in the 70s, which for some of you is a summertime temperature.

Not here. Did you happen to see the eclipse last night? You did not.

Okay. Well, I didn't figure. Yeah, I did. I did see it. I was a little past the best time to see it.

But it was definitely a blood moon and it was quite interesting to see.

And my wife had actually saw it too. I didn't even know she had gotten up to do that. But there you go.

All right. I want to get back to the Heshmeyer -Hanson cross -examination.

I've been enjoying doing this. I hope you have too. We've been covering a lot of different topics. It's sort of fun letting somebody else drive the topic.

I'm gonna do about half an hour on this and then I want to switch over and I want to talk about the

Sermon in the Grove. The Sermon in the Grove from June 16th, 1844,

Joseph Smith's last major sermon presentation on 11 days before his murder in the

Carthage jail. And he was murdered. He was not martyred. There's a difference between murder and martyr. There is no question of the injustice of Joseph Smith's death, but to call it martyrdom when you're shooting back, not quite the meaning of the term.

So, there you go, but it's um, generally it is the last major statement of Joseph Smith's theology of God and it is one of the clearest presentations that completely differentiates

Mormonism from biblical Christianity and separates all of Mormonism's followers from biblical

Christianity. But what's interesting today is you have

LDS philosophers and theologians who recognize really the untenable nature of the

King Follett discourse from from April 7th of 1844. And then the

Sermon in the Grove, frequently those are sort of stuck together, sort of just run -on sentences, basically. They recognize that what the, how the church interpreted, the

LDS church interpreted those two final statements from Joseph Smith. And they are the most quoted statements of Joseph Smith from his, and all of his works.

I have here the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. This is actually the book

I read. I mean, it's got all my original markings. I would have read this in 1982, initially.

Yeah, 1982. And this sat on the desk at KWAO radio in Sun City, Arizona.

FM 106 .3, the home of the great entertainers. Which is now a Mexican station. But, which is not entertaining the people in Sun City, but anyway.

This would have sat there while I was doing the California Angels baseball games, you know, hitting the station ID every 30 minutes.

Playing records, whatever, reading this stuff, learning this stuff. This was the very, this, this very book right here was still got my old

JRW stamp in it. I didn't put a date on it, but like I said, this would have been 1982. And so, in here you have the

King Follett discourse, and then you have the Sermon on the Grove. And these words of Joseph Smith are the most cited of all of his words by the leadership of the

LDS Church itself. Not by people outside the church, even though they probably are that too. But by the church itself.

And so what's happening is the new Mormonism is running from the old

Mormonism while trying to call itself Mormonism. And it's fully understandable because what

Smith says here, which became the Orthodox foundation of Mormonism from 1844,

I'd say until minimally the 1990s. So let's say 150 years.

150 years consistently, it's what lies behind the temple ceremonies. I've had 12 year old boys defending these statements, in argument, arguing with me in Salt Lake or in Mesa or wherever it was.

But now, as Mormonism is fracturing, as it has lost its foundation, lost its leadership, the leadership has really lost its way, in essence.

Now a lot of younger Mormons are going, yeah, I don't have to actually have to believe in an eternal regression of gods.

There was a god before a god before a god. I can believe something else now because this particular philosopher or that particular philosopher has interpreted these things this way.

That never happened when Bruce R. McConkie was alive. Okay, that would have earned you a one -way ticket out the back door of the church in the 1980s.

No question about it. Not the way it is now. Not the way it is now. So we'll want to take a look at that.

But first things first, I've got this all queued up. So it's important to be able to do that and be able to go there.

So I remember, just for those of you who weren't listening, Jacob Hansen, Joe Heschmeier, debated

December of last year in Salt Lake City on the great apostasy. We've listened to Jacob Hansen's cross -examination of Joe Heschmeier.

Now we're reversing that. I'm not sure we're gonna play all of it. We'll see. It allows us to address both sides.

That's what's very useful about it. Wonderful. Jacob, let's talk about Daniel 2. Can you explain how

Daniel 2 would be pointing to the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints in the 19th century in America?

For the sake of argument, no. I don't. Let's just say that I don't agree with that. I don't think it changes the issue that's going on in this debate.

The debate is not about if Mormon interpretations of Daniel 2 are correct. I'm just gonna, for the sake of argument,

I'll just say that Mormonism is false. But you still end up... I think where we end up, though, in that situation is, if this debate is about the apostasy,

I literally could be here saying, look, I want to find the true Church. Okay. Now, again, if you're, if you're representing the positive statement that the great apostasy, as defined by the

Mormon Church and as taught by the Mormon Church for 170 plus years, actually took place, you know, saying, well,

I don't have to defend, you know, maybe our interpretations are all wrong. I find that a little bit on the disingenuous side, to be perfectly honest with you.

I don't think that's... And again, this is, this is the standard debater tactic.

Keep the target as small as possible. It's, if he would, it would be very unwise of him, as we're gonna see when we look at the

Sermon on the Grove, because right at the start, Smith reads a text of scripture and demonstrates he was utterly ignorant of the original language, even though, in both the

King Follett discourse and the Sermon on the Grove, he tries to pretend that he can read German, and he's saying, oh,

Germans, is that not how it reads? And all the rest of this stuff. And he's, he's, I've preached from Hebrew, and I've preached from Greek, and all he was doing is looking stuff up in a lexicon.

A lot of people do that all the time. But, it would be easy to demonstrate that Joseph Smith just massacred the text of scripture all the time, indefensibly.

So, Jacob Hansen can't sit there and go, oh, yeah, the prophets, they, they always handled the text of scripture correctly.

Now, he's just going, hey, maybe, maybe Mormon interpretations are all wrong.

But I still want to know what the true church is. Well, that wasn't what the debate was. And so,

I would think that Heshmeyer really does have a basis for saying, hey, we're in Salt Lake City, okay?

There was a context to this, and you didn't really defend it in its context.

I want to unite to the true church, but then I, and then I'd go to you and say, and if you can't point to a true church, then

I have to assume that there was an apostasy. So, that's a really interesting way. So, your argument is just, if I don't put the papacy, you're just going to assume apostasy?

Well, you'd have to point me to another church. Ah, so I, as a negative, have to actually affirm the true church is the

Catholic Church. The apostasy is a negative. It is, it is the lack of a true church on earth.

That's what the apostasy is. If you don't have a continual, a continuous existence of a church on earth that goes all the way back to the

Apostles, then you have an institutional apostasy as defined by the Church of Jesus Christ. When do you claim the Catholic Church began? The current iteration in about 1965.

During Vatican II. Well, here's the thing. If you want to say that the Catholic Church ultimately is a set of teachings and doctrines and things like that.

Well, that's fine. Well, as an outsider, if I'm looking at this, again dropping any Mormon presuppositions,

I would have to say that the church that you live in today isn't the one that's burning heretics, that is telling

Protestants that they're all going to hell. That was the Catholic Church for a very long time. I'm very glad that you're not a part of the

Catholic Church that used to be. And when I talk about... Well, no, that's an interesting argument. I mean, that's, there, there is a reason to recognize 1965 as a watermark.

There's no question about it. The Roman Catholic Church up to 1965 is very different from the

Roman Catholic Church after 1965. Now, are the changes as stark as some people might want to suggest?

Actually, no. But what happened there began the development that you now see today.

You see with Francis, that you see with Leo, that you see with with making John Henry Cardinal Newman a doctor of the church.

Doctrinal development. And I think, I'm predicting, maybe by 2033, which used to sound like a long time in the future, that's just around the corner.

Let's see, I'll be 71. Yeah. Yeah.

No, wait a minute. Yeah, yeah. I'll be old by then, and I'll be pushing my teeth back into my mouth while I'm talking.

Yeah, I was born in 62, so 33, that'd be 71. Yeah, I'll turn 71 at the end of that year.

Anyway, my, you know, my prediction is there's going to be some kind of a major ecumenical development between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, and I bet you dollars to donuts they will get a lot of the mainstream denominations.

They'll try to get them involved, unless by then there's almost none of them left because they're declining so fast.

But get some of the liberals involved. Try to get some type of Protestant representation to do some big statement that may not really address all the key issues, the filioque or the papacy, though those things have to be addressed in some way, and I think that that's what they were doing a few months ago when they started talking about the filioque as something we could be talking about, we could be discussing.

That's where Neumann comes in, the development hypothesis, and we can do this, that, and the other thing.

Yeah, I could see that happening and being a their big contribution to the unity of the world in 2033.

We'll see, we'll see if that happens. We'll see if that happens. The Catholic Church, and say how much I appreciate it, I am talking about the modern

Catholic Church. The Catholic Church needed to be reformed from what it used to be. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying if a church changes, not only its teaching, but even its behavior, that means it's a different church?

No. Okay, so what was it that made a new church in 1965? Well, I don't know.

What is the essence of the Catholic Church? I'm asking you. I'm trying to find out. Yeah, he's asking the question. Oh, yeah,

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Well, I just, I just, I guess, well, but I have to understand what you're asking. I'm asking, you just told me that the

Catholic Church began in 1965, which is, I'll just say, considerably the latest date I've ever heard.

And I'm wondering how in the world you came to that conclusion. Well, if the papacy is an essential characteristic of the

Catholic Church, then the papacy began, I would say, really in its fullest development in Vatican I.

Okay, so there was no Catholic Church, like when Martin Luther broke away, he didn't break away from the Catholic Church, he broke away from something else?

Well, the problem is that the papacy at that time was defined differently. It didn't have the same dynamic. It sounds like if I said, you're not you unless you have your beard.

Like, it just seems like the way you're defining this is so curious. How, what in 1870 creates a new church, if that's your claim?

So, I guess the doc. Now, look, Hansen has a point to point at fundamental changes.

That, of course, Rome just goes, well, it's development. And the language that is used by the magisterium today is further reflection guided by the

Holy Spirit through the wisdom of the theologians upon the deposit of faith.

That's their long way of saying, yeah, we're changing. And yeah, people 100 years earlier than that didn't believe what we're believing now, but this is how development takes place.

And that's why they want to try to say, you know, no one really knew the doctrine of the Trinity until the church defined it in this way, that way, et cetera, et cetera.

So they try to take the natural development that took place in the early centuries that was necessary as the gospel encounters the

Greek world, answers questions put in Greek philosophical categories, starts using that type of language, sometimes for the good, often for the bad.

And they want to take that and transfer it to 1870, where a dogma that is so transparently worthless, first of all, and transparently ahistorical, abiblical, unapostolic, 1870s

Vatican I, the infallibility of the Pope, and make a connection between the two.

Because, well, this is valid back here, so now it's valid up here too. No, it's not. So Hansen has a point that there are fundamental contradictions in the teaching of the church.

But Peschmeier has a point by saying, but what did

Luther rebel against if it wasn't the Roman Catholic Church? Well, it's the Roman Catholic Church in a previous iteration.

So maybe Hansen could have said, well, you know, we have Roman Catholic Church 1 .0, and then we have 1 .5,

and then you got 2 .0, and you could go through all sorts of doctrinal development over the years with Marian dogmas, purgatory, rising power of the papacy, there's all sorts of stuff that you could break up in that way if you wanted to.

But again, it's just a clear illustration that two different debates were taking place, and both sides were playing dodgeball.

And even when the throw was pretty much straight at their position, they're still sort of going, and dodging stuff.

And we caught Peschmeier on a few things, and we're catching Hansen on a few things, and that's just sort of how debates work.

...teachings of the Catholic Church that never existed before then that are essential to the character of the Catholic Church, which is, it is essential to the character of the

Catholic Church that you have an infallible pope, and that was only dogmatically defined in 1870.

So Joseph Smith didn't praise the Catholic Church because it didn't exist yet, right? Okay, so I would say that, well, he was talking about the institution that claimed to be the

Catholic Church. Okay. And so that is... This institution is what I'm actually asking about. Okay. I'm less interested in what you think about its teachings, and more interested, or what you think about its practices.

I'm asking you when that institution came from. Like if I said, oh, the U .S. is totally different now, therefore the

U .S. started in, you know, 2020, you would say, I want to get political, you would say, that's ridiculous, there's an institutional integrity back to 1776, right?

Yeah, okay, so institutional integrity, you have to define, for me, to understand the question,

I have to understand what do you mean, what is the essence of the institution? Well, no, but I have to, it's important to understand what you're asking me.

You're saying, when did the Catholic Church begin? I have to tell you when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

Saints began, right? Like, I'd say either 1844 or before that, with Joseph Smith. We claim that there was authority given in that time that has had a continual existence.

Now maybe that's not true, maybe that's totally... See, that would have been the key right there. That would have been, again,

I've faulted Joe, I, you know, Mormonism may not be his big thing, but priesthood authority, restoration, is...

I've never read, personally, an LDS discussion of the great apostasy that was not couched in those terms.

You can't even understand what they're claiming. And the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods, as practiced in the

Church today, do I see a de -emphasis upon these things in modern

Mormonism? Yeah, yeah. I would definitely say that the

Mormons of the 90s were significantly more focused upon their priesthood authority, their patriarchal blessing, where they're told what tribe they're of, and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

They were much more focused upon that than Mormons are today. No, no question about it.

But the whole doctrine of the great apostasy is fundamentally that the priesthood authority was lost, and that's where the

Church ceased to exist. Now Hansen's doing the, oh, but there were good people...

That's not the point. Not of the great apostasy. And again, what's happening in modern

Mormonism, and this ties into what we'll be talking about with the Sermon on the Grove, what's happening in modern

Mormonism is you have all sorts of modern people looking back at people that at the time were identified as apostles and prophets, apostles of Jesus Christ.

I mean, they're literally said to be of the 12 apostles on the earth at that time. And there's been, what,

I think just a few weeks ago we mentioned the number, 110, 109, something like that, since that time period.

They were supposed to be apostles of Christ. And now you've got BYU students that think they can just dismiss what an apostle, you know, an apostle like Bruce R.

McConkie is asked a specific doctrinal question. And now you can go, eh,

I'm more Prattian than he is. I would follow B .H.

Roberts at this point, you know, and this type of thing. So that's an apostle you don't have anywhere near his priesthood authority, even from the

LDS perspective, but you can just dismiss what the apostle said in answer to a direct doctrinal question.

And that's why I think Hanson's whole thing,

I think he deals with this by taking sort of a majoritarian view. It's an epistemology of the whole.

And that way you can dismiss the 47 billion contradictions supposedly come from one revealed source.

That's an issue. But what I'm saying is if you want to talk about a continual existence, you have to point to something that has a continual existence.

And I'm asking you, if you don't think it had a continual existence, when does the institution come into being?

What are some of the records of, we're building a new church, we're calling it the Catholic Church, or anything like that? I'm trying to, the thing is, it didn't happen.

Like the Catholic Church, the essence of the Catholic Church, as it exists today, does not exist historically as you go through the historical record.

Until when? They came about bit by bit. So some of the things were only dogmatically defined in Vatican I.

Some things were only dogmatically defined in other councils. I'm not asking the teaching, I'm asking the institution. There is no such thing as an institution without the teaching.

That's what I don't understand about this kind of response. How do you define the institution without defining what is being taught by the institution?

Because Hansen's correct. Roman Catholic theology has developed over the centuries.

And I've said this a billion times, you all have heard me say it. A doctrine like Purgatory, and I've warned against this.

For many, many years, I've warned against the little pamphlets that some

Protestants will publish that will say, this doctrine of Purgatory, 1440.

Or this, 1548. And put these dates on stuff.

That's not how it works. At the same time, Roman Catholics are on the other side, and they'll say, well,

Augustine believed in Purgatory. Not in the Purgatory you believe in. So he talks about a purgation after death, but he doesn't talk about what you believe in.

His was one of those steps toward the, there are a bunch of things that had to develop and come together to form the dogmatic teachings that now, quite honestly, in Roman Catholicism, are being developed out of what they had come to mean.

So when Purgatory is, you know, Council of Florence, stuff like that, especially in conflict with the

East. When Purgatory is dogmatically defined in the middle of the second millennium, basically, it is the development of numerous different strands that have come together.

So it didn't just, everybody just didn't wake up one morning and go, hey, we've got a new dogma called

Purgatory. Never heard of that one before, but this is cool. It never happened. That's not how stuff happens in history.

But it also needs to be admitted that Rome's dogmas developed over time, and so all this, or the

Church of 2 ,000 years, and we've always believed the same thing, is a bunch of baloney. It's just historically fallacious on its face.

And that's why there's such a vast chasm between Roman Catholic apologists and Roman Catholic historians.

You know, that's always been the way that it's been. What do you mean by institution?

For example, in 1870, when I assume you're talking about the First Vatican Council, are you saying there's a different church that starts a council and a different church that ends the council?

Depends on how you define church. By the way,

Hanson has done a great job here in completely derailing Eschmeyer from being able to press any point at all in regards to the actual

LDS doctrine of the apostasy. If Joe had had the idea,

I'm going to really press on the reality that the earliest testimony from people like David Whitmer is there was no restoration of the priesthood prior to the foundation of the church in April 6, 1830.

I'm going to press on the reality that the book of Hebrews says there is no Aaronic priesthood today.

The Melchizedek priesthood is the one priesthood of Jesus Christ. He may not be able to go there because of some of the stuff

Rome says about the Melchizedek priesthood. He's not getting to any of that.

Most of his time is already gone. In my opinion, Hanson is still asking him questions.

He's not handled this cross -ex as an attorney, because that's what he is, very well at all.

By the way, I say that somewhat advisedly because I've got a cross -examination to do with him in a month.

I'm a little bit more focused on those types of things. Though, given the topic that we're going to be doing, which is much broader, the god of Calvinism is morally reprehensible, with the caveat that I'm going to be including the god of Mormonism is morally reprehensible, that's going to be that cross -examination of necessity pretty much precludes, from my perspective, pretty much precludes prepared approaches because it's going to require a knowledge of what just took place in the debate.

What's his approach going to be? What's my approach going to be? I think anybody should be able to guess what my approach is going to be.

But the cross -ex, there's not a specific, there's a dogmatic statement, if there are such things as dogmatic statements, but there are lots of statements from apostles and prophets about the nature of the great apostasy.

I would think at almost every single general conference, some reference is made to the authority of the church, the authority of the apostles and prophets, and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

So, that should have been the focus. Now, maybe he gave up on that because Hansen had already basically said, hey,

Mormonism could be all false, who knows? And had turned it into a debate on the papacy. Maybe that's why he did that.

I don't know. The institutional church, as I understand it, the essence of the Catholic Church's institution is the papacy.

It's the unique institution that the Catholic Church claims that goes all the way back to the apostles.

If that does not exist, then we go all the way back through history, then what happens is

I have to say that the Catholic Church began once that institution was defined as such. So, that happens in 1870,

Martin Luther didn't break away from the Catholic Church, he broke away from something else. He broke away from a church that institutionally was different than the church that exists today.

What was it that he broke away from? The Catholic... The church that identifies as the

Catholic Church. Okay. Okay.

Let's go back to Daniel 2. Daniel 2. There are four kingdoms.

What is the fourth kingdom? Not sure. Okay. Would you agree with me that during the time of the fourth kingdom,

Christ will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed? Not sure. I'm going to punt on that because I don't necessarily...

It seems like you're not really committing to... I don't want to commit to any particular interpretation made by Latter -day

Saints because, again, for the sake of the debate, the apostasy being a reality is a matter of if someone can show the continual existence of an institutional church going all the way back that held the authority of Peter.

Okay. The point is that there is a church based in Salt Lake City that claims institutional authority, priesthood authority to specifically teach that there was an apostasy, that the priesthood was lost and had to be restored,

April 6, 1830, and that John the Baptist and Peter, James, and John had to come back to earth and ordain

Joseph Smith and his fellows to a priesthood so that a church could exist.

Now, historically, that ain't what happened. You put

David Whitmer's testimony together with the changes between the 1833 Book of Commandments and the 1835

Doctrine and Covenants and it's plain to any honest investigator that on April 6, 1830, the authority he now claims is necessary for the church to exist, if he actually claims that, but that the church has always claimed was necessary, did not exist.

No claim was being made for that. That's the religion he's a part of.

I have to wonder how many Mormons were sitting in the audience going, what's going on?

The older Mormons would be sitting there going, this is not how it was done in my day.

Of course, I'm not sure there would have been a debate like that in Salt Lake City in his day, to be very honest with you.

Let's pull that down. We're halfway through the program already and we'll need to...

Oh, that's right. This has the thing down here. This is a different player. All these different players do things differently. I will keep that running and we will continue with that but I wanted to switch gears here, staying on the subject of Mormonism anyways and look, if you have no interest in Mormonism you might want to just move on from here and go find another thing to watch but hopefully this will be helpful to folks.

Of course, Mormonism has been a central focus for us for many, many, many years.

We've moved on to other topics but when Alpha Omega Ministries was formed, initially,

Mormonism was all we were going to be dealing with. We didn't know anything about Jehovah's Witnesses or Roman Catholicism or anything else at the time.

You heard in my review of this debate that I'm criticizing both sides and I'm drawing from a lot of historical information about both sides and I'm not sure how many people would really be able to make that kind of criticism and have that kind of background information.

How many evangelicals understand the LDS doctrine of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods?

That you have to have the Aaronic priesthood to baptize. That you have to have the Melchizedek priesthood to lay on hands and receive the

Holy Ghost. The centrality of that to the priesthood to the temple ceremonies which go on only in the temples, not in those ward chapels but only in those many temples they've now built.

And then to be able to compare that with Vatican I or various Council of Florence or whatever else.

We're throwing a lot of stuff out here and unfortunately a lot of evangelicals, their knowledge of the

LDS doctrine of God came from the Godmakers. And while that animated portion boy could that be done better today that was the 1980s

I was all done with hand drawings I would imagine

Grok's Imagine could produce really cool looking stuff now. Slap some

AI on that one. But that's where most evangelicals are they've never read teachings of the

Prophet Joseph Smith or Marvel's Work and Wonder, Articles of Faith by James Talmadge any of that kind of stuff. So I want you to hear in Joseph Smith's own words his final because he died 11 days later this is his final word on the doctrine of God and then as we see development taking place within Mormonism and there is a lot of it going on most of it is aimed right at this sermon the

King Follett Discourse took place at the General Conference Church always first weekend in April, first weekend in October so April 7th, 1844 he does the

King Follett Discourse massively important stuff there we have imagined, supposed that God was

God from all eternity I refute the idea and take away the veil so that you may see when Joseph Smith uttered those words he forever separated his followers who would believe that from biblical

Christianity but there was a backlash and as I recall it was the

Nauvoo Expositor posted criticisms now it's fascinating, it's normally like a month later the speed with which this type of stuff takes place today

I could say something on this program I could have already said something in the first 37 minutes of this program and there could be a 5 minute rebuttal video already posted online

I mean that's technically possible so stuff today is instantaneous it was not back then think about the fact that there were people who were in attendance at the

General Conference April 7th but where do you get a transcript?

you don't go to YouTube that's how I do it today a debate takes place

I download the debate I throw it into a particular program transcribes it you've got it right there, you've got time stamps there you go, that's how it's done today and it could be done like that but there wasn't even a published in fact what was it?

hold on here I think that was right at this section hold on a second it's about 340 something there it is the

King Follett Discourse is April 7th, 1844 it is first published in the

Times and Seasons August 15th, 1844 so a number of months have passed by Joseph Smith is now dead and how did they get this sermon?

because it was reported by Willard Richards, Wilfred Woodruff Thomas Bullock, and William Clayton now those are the standard men who recorded

Smith's sermons so they're using some form of shorthand and then they'd compare notes and they'd produce a transcript well today there's all sorts of people saying well

I think maybe they missed this or they got this wrong but it doesn't appear in print for anyone to actually respond to it that wasn't there until August of 1844 and I'm not sure when the

Sermon on the Grove was first published actually there might have been something in here oh that's interesting published at the same time

I've noticed the Sermon on the Grove and the King Follett Discourse are frequently conflated with each other this may be why it also appeared in the

Times and Seasons of August 15th, 1844 that explains one thing right there that's interesting to see if my two sources of information here are accurate so Sermon on the

Grove then there have been people criticizing Joseph Smith for teaching a plurality of gods which he plainly did in the

King Follett Discourse and some of them are apostates that is former members of the

LDS Church there are a lot of former members of the LDS Church because Mormonism is changing rapidly under Joseph Smith's leadership

I have said many many times if he had been given two more years before his murder there'd be no

Mormonism because no one would be able to figure out what it was saying no one would be able to make heads or tails out of it but it is what it is so now he has an opportunity to respond to the apostates he doesn't know he's going to die in 11 days he doesn't know this could be his last statement but it pretty much is

President Joseph Smith read the third chapter of Revelation and took for his text the first chapter, the sixth verse Revelation 1 -6 and hath made us kings and priests unto

God his Father to God and his Father to him be glory and dominion forever and ever,

Amen now let me just stop for a second Mormons use Revelation 1 -6 as a proof text of polytheism and this is why listen to it from the

King James Version again and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his

Father to him be glory and dominion forever and ever, Amen so to God and God's Father so I've had more than one

Mormon point to that and say see there's polytheism well what does for example the

LSB read and he has made us to be a kingdom priests to his God and Father to him be the glory and the might forever and ever,

Amen so who is the his it's Jesus, verse 5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth to him who loves us and releases us from our sins by his blood we're talking about Jesus and he,

Jesus, has made us to be a kingdom priests to his

God and Father to his God and Father so there's one person,

God and Father is identifying one person and the Unitarians go, see Jesus has a

God yeah he became incarnate, he wasn't an atheist, congratulations so now the

Greek the Greek is actually unambiguous but Joseph Smith couldn't read Greek I mean he pretended but he was not trained in Greek and so he looked at this and he just went with the translation of King James to to theokai patri autu so autu is controlling the phrase his

God and Father the King James translation is awkward and in fact, errant it's not a good translation and I'll let you

King James -onlius beat your head against a wall on that one but God and Father are both referring to one person that's the person of the

Father in distinction from the Son so the modalists are out there you go and of course only

God makes us a kingdom of priests so Unitarians are out too so there's the background with Revelation 1 .6

you need to be prepared for that I don't remember if I put that in the 100 verse memory system it's been a long time ago

I don't know if it's in there or not but it would be good to be familiar with that because if you open your

Bible, almost any modern translation is going to read differently not because the Greek is ambiguous but because the

King James translators were not infallible alright so Smith continues it is altogether correct in the translation now you know that of late some malicious and corrupt men have sprung up and apostatized from the

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints and they declare that the prophet believes in a plurality of gods and lo and behold we have discovered a very great secret they cry the prophet says there are many gods and this proves that he has fallen it has been my intention for a long time to take up this subject and lay it clearly before the people and show what my faith is in relation to this interesting matter

I have contemplated the saying of Jesus and as it was in the days of Noah so shall it be also in the days of the

Son of Man and if it does rain, I will preach this doctrine for the truth shall be preached by the way, he got rained out the end of the sermon is rather a drop because it started raining cats and dogs do people know that phrase anymore?

anyway, I will preach on the plurality of gods I have selected this text for that express purpose

I wish to declare I have always and in all congregations when I have preached on the subject of the deity it has been the plurality of gods brief pause that is a bold faced lie that is a bold faced lie any person with a copy of the documentary history of the church sitting there in front of them can go to the preceding 5 volumes of the documentary history of the church and discover that is not the case by any stretch of the imagination the

Book of Mormon is not a polytheistic text as originally published in 1830 it was a modalistic text and modalism is a form of Unitarianism not polytheism that is just a bold faced lie but that is why

I said Smith was changing so fast that if he had not been murdered in the

Carthage jail in 1844 there would be no Mormonism because even here there would be people anybody who had been with him for more than 1844 9 years would know that is not what he was preaching when

I joined this church they would know that and most of them probably had already left and were part of these supposed apostates it has been preached by the elders for 15 years bold faced lie

I have always declared God to be a distinct personage

Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father and the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a spirit and these three constitute three distinct personages and three gods now remember if you are sitting there going

I talked to some missionaries once they told me about the first vision they showed me this picture and you have two beings up there in the light and they are not touching the ground and Joseph Smith is doing this number and all that kind of stuff remember the earliest editions of the first vision from 1832 do not have multiple persons it is not until 1838 that you get the modern day version of the first vision and that is right where you start getting the book of Abraham allegedly being translated and you see this development right around 1837 -1838 which is years after the founding of the church

April 6, 1830 that leads to the bold proclamation that we have here of polytheism, plurality of gods if this is in accordance with the

New Testament he is claiming Revelation 1 -6 lo and behold we have three gods anyhow and they are plural and who can contradict it our text says and hath made us kings and priests unto

God and his father the apostles have discovered that there were gods above so that is how he is interpreting

Revelation 1 -6 he was wrong, he did not understand the text did not understand the original language was going on a bad translation most cults start that way the apostles have discovered that there were gods above for Paul says

God was the father of our Lord Jesus Christ Paul says

God was the father of our Lord Jesus Christ well again, here is a young man who never understood the trinity when he tried to express the trinity in the book of Mormon, he ended up expressing it as modalism and had to edit later on to make it different and that editing process continued after his death my object was to preach the scriptures and preach the doctrine they contain there being a god above the father of our

Lord Jesus Christ that is the misunderstanding of Revelation 1 -6 the error that he is basing all this upon I am bold to declare

I have taught all the strong doctrines publicly and always teach stronger doctrines in public than in private

John was one of the men and apostles declare they were made kings and priests unto

God the father of our Lord Jesus Christ it reads just so in the Revelation hence the doctrine of the plurality of gods is as prominent in the

Bible as any other doctrine it is all over the face of the Bible it stands beyond the power of controversy a wayfaring man though a fool need not err therein

Paul says there are gods many and lords many well, there you go, Paul did say that there are gods many and lords many 1

Corinthians 8 -4 -6 however, he is saying yes, the pagans around us believe there are many gods many lords, so -called gods but if there are so -called gods to us there is but one

God and then, we only covered this a few weeks ago remember, I got back from the trip to Dallas and to Baton Rouge and what did we cover?

we covered the Shema, the Christian Shema in 1 Corinthians 8 -6 where Paul takes the

Shema and he expands it

God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ this is the one God that is being discussed and has always been discussed actually, the gods didn't develop into this but now in the

Revelation of the Trinity in the Incarnation, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit this is now seen I want to set it forth in a plain and simple matter but to us there is but one

God that is pertaining to us and he is in all and through all but if Joseph Smith says there are gods many and lords many they cry away with him, crucify him, crucify him mankind verily say it, the scriptures are with them search the scriptures for they testify of things that these apostates would gravely pronounce blasphemy and again this is exactly how

Mormons argue today very often on these exact points they will isolate attacks and they will not even try to deal with the mountain of monotheism the mountain of the fact that Elohim and Yahweh over 540 times uses the compound name one

God, in Mormonism there are two separate gods one gave birth to the other, one is the father of the other and we are not talking about the

Incarnation and don't get us into the Incarnation, there is a lot we can read from Mormonism on that Paul, if Joseph Smith is a blasphemer you are

I say there are gods many and lords many but to us only one and we are to be in subjection to that one and no man can limit the bounds of the eternal existence of eternal time hath he beheld the eternal world and is he authorized to say that there is only one

God he makes himself a fool if he thinks or says so and there is an end of his career or progress in knowledge he cannot obtain all knowledge for he is sealed up the gate to it, some say

I do not interpret the scripture the same as they do, they say it means the heathens gods, so in other words already he had been criticized for his misuse of 1

Corinthians chapter 8 and he doesn't recognize the background, he probably didn't know what the

Shema was I don't know, or he didn't see it there but yes as there are so called gods

Paul says there are gods many and lords many and that makes a plurality of gods in spite of the whims of all men why not interpret it in context why not look at what is happening in Corinth, because he doesn't know

Joseph Smith made stuff up as he went along, he doesn't know the background he doesn't care, he is a prophet, he is an apostle he has been sent by God with a message he can say what he wants without a revelation

I am not going to give them the knowledge of the God of heaven you know and I testify that Paul had no allusion to the heathen gods even though he is talking to the

Corinthians about sacrifices in pagan temples context was never something to bother

Joseph Smith he had no idea what that meant

I have it from God and get over it if you can I have a witness of the

Holy Ghost and a testimony that Paul had no allusion to the heathen gods so there you go the

Holy Ghost told me that even though Paul is writing to the Corinthians the Corinthians have a pagan temple on every corner the specific topic of conversation is offering sacrifice to idols but that has nothing to do with it and the

Holy Ghost told me so, so believe me we see this foolishness on TBN all the time but now we see this foolishness from Joseph Smith and there are 17 million people following that religion today

I will show from the Hebrew Bible that I am correct and the first word shows a plurality of gods and I want the apostates and learned men to come here and prove the contrary if they can an unlearned boy must give you a little

Hebrew oh man, this is embarrassing so embarrassing for Joseph Smith then he reads from a transliteration then he has again, the people writing this down don't know

Hebrew either so it's in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth rendered by King James translators in the beginning

God created the heavens and the earth I want to analyze the word Rosh, the head sheath, a grammatical termination the bath was not originally put there when the inspired man wrote it oh, so he knows what was written before there was anything written down must be the

Holy Ghost to him but it has been since added by an old Jew man,

I was tempted to say something about certain websites today maybe agreeing, but I will not

Barah signifies Elohim is from the word Eloi God, no it's

El in the singular number and by adding the word

Chaim it renders it God this guy does not know what he's talking about it reads first, in the beginning the head of the gods brought forth the gods or as others have translated the head of the gods called the gods together

I want to show a little learning as well as other fools, a little learning is a dangerous thing drink deep or taste not the

Perian spring their shallow draughts intoxicate the brain and drinking largely sobers us up again all this confusion among professed translators is her want of drinking another draught the head god organized the heavens and the earth

I defy all the world to refute me well he has been refuted so many times and anyone who does well in first year

Hebrew knows he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about Elohim is plural, but Elohim is used with a singular verb hence it's translated singularly

El is the basic root form in the beginning

Elohim, God, created heavens and earth has nothing to do with brought forth gods this is pure fiction indefensible from the basis of the text he already had to change the text as it was with some type of divine revelation that's what cultists always do

I defy all the world to refute me well Joseph Smith, you have been refuted ever since you said these words in the beginning the heads of the gods organized the heavens and the earth now the learned priests and the people rage and the heathen imagine a vain thing if you pursue the

Hebrew text further it reads the head of the gods said let us make a man in our own image

I once asked a learned Jew if the Hebrew language compels us to render all words ending in Haim in the plural, why not render the first Elohim plural he replied, that is the rule with few exceptions but in this case it would ruin the

Bible how about we notice the singular verb like anyone who actually reads it he acknowledged

I was right I came here to investigate these things precisely as I believe them hear and judge for yourselves and if you go away as satisfied well and good

I'll pick up at that point with the sermon in the grove and with our other topics as we move along here so don't forget the upcoming debates

I wanted to thank Chris for getting the information up on the website that was not up there on the last program that will give you all the stuff about the upcoming debates specifically the debate with Shabir Ali on March 28 that doesn't show a time

I need to find that it's on Saturday March 28 I think it's during the day

I'm thinking it's during the debate it's going to be a remote debate both Shabir and I will be online so pray that all the tech works real well and then you also see the debate with Jacob Hansen that's at 7pm

April 3rd we're in Presbyterian Church in Ogden there you've got all that stuff there on the website now looking forward to the trip coming up we've got a lot of stuff going on this week

Mike might get the new command center possibly by the end of the week and that means

Rich is salivating in the other room because he's got plans within plans on getting that cool studio put together so we can do this on the road and much to his happiness without all sorts of colors there was a praise the